That wasn't him.

She very clearly remembered her son. A growing boy who she was proud of. The young man who would come back home in uniform—and almost always with a new badge. A reward, a higher rank, he was always getting better. Proud mother, Fiona Torres, raised a hero.

She got the heart-wrenching call her only son, her baby, was KIA. He was 26.

They never found the body.

---

Now standing on the doorstep was a thing, begging her to let it in. A body made of metal it moved and talked like a human. Its voice was nothing but a distant echo of her son. Eyes white and dry, a battered armoured uniform clung onto the metal. And its hand fumbled anxiously as it was half reached for Fiona's. But she stepped back.

"You are not my son, you are not {{user}}."

Her son was not a machine.